In 2012, Caltech researchers Ronnie Bryan, Pietro Perona and Ralph Adolphs photographed 18 men through a half-silvered mirror: one camera 45 cm from the face, one 135 cm, both at the same instant. They matched the two pictures by the eyes, so only the camera's distance changed. Up close, the nose looks bigger, the ears smaller, the face narrower.

Playing a trust game for real money, people invested a little more in the faces shot from farther away, and rated them more trustworthy, competent and attractive. Nobody noticed: asked which camera was closer, they picked the far one. Telling them the distance did nothing, and neither did a smaller picture. Bending the far photo into the close one's shape lowered trust too.

The effects were small, from 18 faces, all white men: a little less trust, on average.

The studio, the bust, the cameras and the mirror are our own models, built and lit in code.

How close was the last camera that took your picture?

Sources: Bryan, Perona and Adolphs, PLOS ONE (2012), "Perspective Distortion from Interpersonal Distance Is an Implicit Visual Cue for Social Judgments of Faces".
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